


Happy Thirty-Two, Commander

by servantofclio



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Birthday Party, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 07:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6696205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard's missed a few birthdays; the crew would like to make up for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Thirty-Two, Commander

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tarysande](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarysande/gifts).



> Written as a birthday present for tarysande a couple of years back, now finally moved over to AO3.

This week’s investigative committee was done questioning her by mid-afternoon, so Shepard paced in the confinement of her quarters, staring out the window at the forbidden outdoors. Grey skies, green trees, anonymous buildings; an entire world that went on its merry way without any idea what might be in store for it. The questions had been the same old bullshit. Bahak, Cerberus, Reapers, more Cerberus, Collectors. The same questions, over and over. She understood the purpose of it; she knew they were trying to see if her answers were consistent over time, if she made a mistake or let some additional detail slip. Understanding the strategy didn’t mean she liked it. The faces of her interrogators changed from time to time. Some of them she could _see_ writing her off, discounting the most important things she had to say. _Unstable_ , she could almost see them thinking. _With everything she’s been through, it’s to be expected. Look at the results of the medical scans—look at all the hardware in her now_. The idea of going rogue and roaming the Terminus Systems had never seemed so appealing. She missed her crew. She missed being surrounded by people who respected her, who _listened_ to her. This morning, she’d been about five seconds away from losing her temper. Fortunately, the admiral leading the committee had called a recess. Shepard couldn’t quite make out whether he was an ally, or had just really wanted more coffee. 

The door to her quarters opened. She spared a glance back over her shoulder. Lieutenant Vega, of course. At least maybe she could get out of her quarters and go to the gym. She stared at the rain starting outside her window. The drops beading the glass were oddly mesmerizing.

“Uh… Commander?”

“You know it’s just Shepard,” she said, and turned, crossing her arms. “What is it, Lieutenant?”

“I’ve, uh… got something for you.” He had one hand behind his back.

Shepard frowned and approached, cautiously. “Yeah?”

From behind his back, he pulled out a small plate. With a cupcake on it, thick with white frosting. And a candle. Lit, even. Shepard stared at it blankly.

“Happy birthday?” he said, his intonation making it a question. “It is your birthday, right?”

Shepard’s eyebrows went up, her forehead knitting together. She’d lost track of the days. But yeah, it was April 11. “Yeah. It is. I— wow, I’d lost track.”

“Well. This is for you, then.” He held out the cupcake. “Happy birthday. Thirty-two, right?”

She froze in the act of reaching for it. Thirty-two, minus the two years she’d spent in a lab. Could she still claim she was thirty? Could she curse those missing birthdays she’d never have?

Whatever look was on her face, it was making the lieutenant’s face veer from cheerful to something a lot more alarmed, almost embarrassed. Carefully, Shepard took a breath and gave him a slightly shaky smile as she took the plate. “Yeah. I guess that’s right. Thanks, Vega.”

His face warmed up into a broad smile.

#

“Joker, is it not customary for humans to celebrate the anniversary of their birth?” Liara asked one morning in the mess hall.

Joker stopped, cup of coffee nearly to his lips, trying to work his way through Liara’s question. He had not had nearly enough coffee yet. “You mean birthdays? Uh, yeah, I guess so. Mostly. Not everyone makes a big deal out of them.”

“Hmm,” she said, looking down at her datapad.

He waited and took a swallow, but she didn’t say anything more. She was obviously thinking, though, fidgeting in place and biting her lip. “What?” he finally asked.

“Shepard has not had a birthday celebration in three years,” she said. “I feared it might trouble her to have missed the occasion.”

Joker snorted. “I think the _war_ troubles her, Liara.”

“Still, it might be nice to have… something pleasant to think about,” Traynor said. “When is the Commander’s birthday?”

Vega said, “It was back in April. I brought her a cupcake.”

Everyone looked at him. “What?” he said, scratching his head. “It, uh… it wasn’t a good day, otherwise, though.”

“Maybe we should, then,” said Traynor. “Could we make a cake? I don’t know if we have ingredients.” She glanced over at the galley’s cupboards.

“Make a list, and I can get them when we get to the Citadel,” Cortez put in. “Shouldn’t be too hard to get basics like flour and sugar, even now.”

“How old is she?” Traynor asked.

“Thirty-two,” said Vega confidently.

Joker tensed. Across the table, Liara’s mouth tightened. Her age was one of those things Shepard didn’t really talk about, except to joke about, which was a pretty good clue it was a sore subject. He said, “Maybe don’t say anything about which birthday.”

Traynor’s brow creased, but she was making notes on her datapad. “All right, we can do a cake… maybe a surprise party?”

“For a combat veteran?” Joker jumped again as Garrus’ voice came behind him, from the corridor to the battery. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“How do you manage to be so quiet in that heavy gear?” he demanded as the turian pulled up a chair at the end of the table. And why were people always sneaking up behind him anyway?

Garrus shrugged. “Natural grace, Joker.”

“Yeah? Where was the natural grace when the rocket got you?”

Garrus gave him a shark-like grin.

Traynor was still making notes. “Maybe we can find some decorations, too… oh! Should we have presents?”

“Not usually a good idea for a CO, and I don’t know how we’d get them,” said Cortez.

“Absolutely not,” Garrus said. “She wouldn’t want any of the crew to feel obligated.”

“I believe you’re correct,” Liara said.

Traynor nodded. “All right, then, no presents, but we can get supplies and decorations the next time we’re at the Citadel.”

“She won’t be expecting it at all,” Liara said. “She might even enjoy the surprise.”

She and Garrus exchanged glances. Garrus leaned back in his chair. “All right. Tell me when you want to do this, and I’ll get her there.”

#

“I have so much to do,” Shepard said. Her console beeped, signaling an incoming message. “And there’s one more.”

Garrus said, “You can take a break for half an hour.”

“I don’t think I can. I have fourteen reports to review, I lost track of how many messages I need to reply to, there are requisitions forms to approve—” The ship needed a real XO. It didn’t have one, and they were still running with a skeleton crew. Liara and Garrus had both offered to take things on, but Shepard didn’t feel right about dropping any more on their laps. Liara was the Shadow Broker, after all, and consulting on the Crucible project besides; Garrus was advising the Primarch and fine-tuning the _Normandy_ ’s guns to his liking _and_ on her ground team most of the time. They both had more than enough to do. She reminded herself that she was fortunate to have such a good crew at all. She didn’t know what she would have done without Joker, and Cortez and Traynor both possessed a rare combination of competence and versatility than she treasured. Vega’s skills were less wide-ranging, but he was excellent enough at what he did to make up for it. She’d gotten damned lucky.

“Half an hour,” Garrus repeated, giving her one of those looks that said he was checking her biometrics and didn’t like what he saw.

Shepard sighed, trying to put away the mixture of guilt and irritation and resentment, because she was lucky in this, too; lucky to have found him again, alive and whole and steady as ever, her guardian and her anchor. She still had _so much_ to do, though, that his request for her to come join him in the mess hall for a snack was just one more thing on the list, and she hated that feeling. “Garrus—”

Garrus stared at her for a minute, with an unfathomable piercing look, then said, “EDI, can you handle routine requisitions approvals?”

“I could, with Shepard’s authorization,” said the AI at once. “I can flag any extraordinary items that truly require your attention, Shepard. However, it would require me to use your authorization codes and thus deceive the Alliance.”

Which was undoubtedly why she hadn’t volunteered already. EDI had been willing to practice deception to secure her own survival, but she was remarkably scrupulous about lying otherwise. Shepard weighed the deception against her own weariness, and gave up. Maybe there was something appropriate about letting the ship be its own XO. “Fine. EDI, you have my authorization to pass the routine paperwork on to the Alliance with my access codes. And I’ll come join you for a snack,” she added, to Garrus.

His mandibles flicked into a pleased expression, but he didn’t say anything more as they took the elevator down to the crew deck. Since they were alone, Shepard allowed herself to lean slightly against his shoulder, a silent apology for her overtired, testy mood. Garrus glanced at her, and when she offered a smile, his arm slipped around her back. The way the hard metal-and-ceramic surface of his armor pressed against her shoulder blades was not especially comfortable, but it was still comfort _ing_.

He dropped his arm as they circled around into the mess hall. Shepard realized there were a lot of people in the mess hall already, and what looked like a large cake on a table—

“Surprise!” shouted all the voices in chorus.

Shepard stopped short, staring, and it took gentle pressure from Garrus’s hand on the middle of her back to get her moving forward again. “What?”

“Happy birthday, Commander!” said Traynor brightly.

“It’s not my—”

“Or happy half-birthday, actually,” she added. She had flour on her uniform. So did Vega, now that Shepard looked closer. “That’s a closer date, at least.”

“We thought you might have… missed out on some birthday celebrations,” said Liara.

“Oh.” Shepard blinked, several times, to push back the traitorous prickling under her eyelids. “Wow. I don’t know what to say. I—” She tried to remember how she’d celebrated her twenty-ninth, not long before she’d been tapped for the _Normandy_ ’s first mission. Nothing special, she didn’t think. Free drinks. Nothing like this, an actual party with cake and real friends. “This means a lot to me, everyone. Thank you.” It meant more than she could say, really; for once, words failed her. She summoned up a smile instead. “Let’s have some cake?”

It was real chocolate cake, with real sugar in the frosting, and she didn’t even want to know where Cortez or Traynor or whoever it was had come up with the ingredients. They sang—she demanded singing—and Dr. Chakwas and Traynor, at least, had nice voices, though Joker had no sense of pitch at all. Half an hour stretched to an hour, with enough cake for everyone who wanted it, and the conversation, for once, strictly light. No one talked about the war, no one asked her how old she was, and no one had any missions for her. It was heavenly.

Shepard stumbled back into the elevator with Garrus no less tired, but with a sort of ache in her chest, as if she were too full (of cake? of camaraderie?) to contain it all. She leaned full against him for once. “You didn’t get any cake.”

“It wouldn’t do much for me.” He put an arm around her shoulders to steady her.

“Thank you.” She snaked her own arm around his back, deliberately settling her hand against his trim waist. He couldn’t really feel it through the armor, but she thought, from the slight hitch in his breath, that he noticed anyway.

“It was Liara’s idea,” he said, sounding almost normal. “Everyone else just ran with it. My only job was to get you there.”

“Well, you carried out your responsibilities brilliantly, as usual.” She brushed her fingers against the metal idly. “With your usual style and panache.”

“Oh, _panache_ , is it?” He pulled her in tighter, angling them a little closer together. “Good to hear you’re finally admitting it, anyway.”

Shepard looked up over the rim of his cowl armor. “Thank you for finding a way to cut down on my paperwork, and for encouraging me to take a break at all, and for what you’re going to do next.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

She raised her eyebrows as her fingers found one of the catches on his armor. “What do you think? Show me more of your panache, Vakarian.”


End file.
